Thursday, May 24, 2012

On
the 23rd of May 2012 Dr. Tom Traves, President and Vice-Chancellor of Dalhousie
University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, gave this anecdote in his
speech at the Spring convocation ceremony for the Faculty of Science and
Graduate Studies:

"There
is a story, probably only partly true but it's a good story anyway, that
Winston Churchill once delivered a nine-word convocation speech. He started off
by looking at the graduates with his famous stare and said, 'Never give up.' He
then paused and once again he said, 'Never give up.' Then, after another short
pause, he stared at them even more fiercely and in his sternest voice he
declared, 'Never give up!' Then he sat down."

It's not well known that
Churchill's succinct convocation speech was supposed to have been much longer.
Unfortunately, he had misplaced his papers and, trying to recite the text from
memory, could only recall the first three words. After repeating them thrice,
he gave up.

My
ears did a double-take a couple of months ago when a customer at the Starbucks
on Lexington
and 40th ordered something called "a black guy." The cashier repeated
"black guy" to the barista, so I knew I had heard correctly. When I
noticed others order this drink a day or two later, I became curious, and asked
Frank, the cashier, "What's a `black guy'?"

"It's
two shots," he replied.

My
jaw dropped. "You mean, like...?"

"Yeah,"
Frank laughed, miming two blows to his head. "Two shots!"

I
was mortified. A simple double espresso had taken on a racially offensive and
violent nickname, and Starbucks was laughingly going along with it. It bothered
me deeply, and for weeks I considered writing to the company. But what could I
ask them to do?

I'm
glad I didn't write that letter. The other day, I ordered a venti dark roast
with a shot of espresso. The cashier, in Starbucks' typical passive-aggressive
practice of rewording every order, called out to the barista: "A venti
bold red eye."

"What's
a `red eye'?" I inquired.

"A
red eye is an extra shot," she explained. "A black eye is two shots;
a purple eye, three shots."

SAN FRANCISCO -- They drove this narcotics agent right out of their
classroom. He had come to clue them in on drugs -- something all high school
kids should know about, of course -- and he thought he'd really show them
something. So he passed this real live joint of weed around the class on a
plate. And when the plate had finished the rounds and got back to him, see, it
had three joints in it. The narc
mumbled, stumbled, and made a hasty retreat.

Dr.
Richard Blum, from Stanford, looked out at the 400 high school editors seated
under the orange icicle chandeliers in the Hilton Hotel's Continental Ballroom,
where the Tom Campbell Drug Rap had just begun. He had recounted the story, and
gotten a laugh, but he couldn't say what it meant. [...]

See
also Brunvand, The Choking Doberman, 162-3;
Brunvand, Too Good To Be True, 331;
Richard Dorson, America in Legend, 269. Cf.

David
Hardy, What A Mistake (Secaucus, NJ:
Castle , 1987), 101.

Florida students were delighted one year during their Rag
Week festivities to welcome the offer ofa local police officer to show off his tracker dog's remarkable
sleuthing facility.

However,
somebody blundered in selecting the venue for the event, for when, having
concealed ten packets of cannabis about the room, the officer let his sniffing
side-kick off the leash, the indefatigable bloodhound came back with 11!

Saturday, May 19, 2012

[...]
"Cigarette makers," began a remarkable story in Business Week, "now
suffering through their second consecutive year of falling sales, may take a
closer look at something they once swore they would never resort to in order to
hypo sales -- marijuana." The story went on to suggest there might be
larger profits than anyone had suspected in legal, commercial grass, and told
how a number of good dope names ("Acapulco Gold," "Morocco Red")
had apparently been registered by tobacco manufacturers. Nowhere in the story
did Business Week's tone imply that mass distribution of pot for profit might
be an evil thing. [...]

[Rolling
Stone readers who didn't also read Business Week -- most of them, I would guess
-- might have been led to believe by that brief reference to the registering of
"good dope names" that the latter magazine gave credence to such
rumors, which it didn't. The following excerpts from the Business Week article were
cobbled together from various Google Book snippets. -- bc]

Business
Week, 6 September 1969, p 28.

Will
cigarettes take to pot?

[...]
What's more, according to the underground grapevine, the major cigarette
companies are just waiting for the day pot is legalized so they can start
producing grass-laced smokes.

"I
know for a fact that the big companies are experimenting and have brand names already
decided," declares Gene Guerrero, editor of the Great Speckled Bird, Atlanta's underground
newspaper. Adds David Drake, a bearded 1969 University of Wisconsin
graduate in fine arts: "I've heard that the names Acapulco Gold and Tijuana
Gold have already been copyrighted." And a miniskirted New
York City flower child avows that "one of the leading
cigarette companies -- I think it's American -- has bought large plots of land in
Louisiana, Mexico,
and Central America specifically for growing
pot." [...]

Such
rumors have been growing for the past year or so, and they are obviously
disconcerting to tobacco men. Says one executive, who would rather remain
anonymous, "We have enough trouble dealing with the cigarette health scare
without selling drugs, too." Another adds categorically: "No company
in the industry has had anything to do with marijuana, nor does anyone want to."
Others term the rumors "ridiculous" and "blatantly false."

Despite
repeated denials, however, the rumors flourish, and not just in the underground
press alone. Last year, the New York Knickerbocker, a local tabloid, ran an
article stating that American Tobacco Co. had registered the names "Acapulco
Gold" and "Morocco Red" just in case marijuana become legalized.
American immediately denied this and branded the story as "nothing short of
irresponsible reporting." And a check with the U.S. Patent Office, where
tobacco men have registered hundreds of never-used names over the years, reveals
such exotic potential brands as Luv and Laredo
-- but nothing of recent vintage that would directly connote marijuana. [...]

Rolling
Stone, 4 March 1971, p. 25

DOPE
NOTES

The following communication came to our
offices on January 15th:

DEAR
MR. WENNER:

Your
newspaper, as well as many others, have been carrying so many speculative
pieces on cigarette smoking and marijuana, we thought you'd like to have this
to set the record straight.

Sincerely
yours,

FREDERICK PANZER

THE
TOBACCO INSTITUTE, INC.

"Rumors
about the cigarette industry's involvement with marijuana are as persistent as
they are false," said a spokesman for the Tobacco Institute, adding:
"Because both tobacco and marijuana are so commonly used in cigarette
form, these rumors are plausible lies which appeal to people who have a strong
wish to believe them, either because they are pro-marijuana or anti-tobacco, or
both."

Following
are statements of all six major cigarette companies:

"We
are unalterably opposed to the legalization of marijuana, and therefore
disclaim any activity which would remotely involve marijuana."

E.
P. FINCH, PRESIDENT

BROWN
& WILLIAMSON TOBACCO CO.

"With
respect to marijuana, Reynolds is not now considering -- nor have we ever
considered -- the eventual sale of any product containing marijuana any place
in the world. The published rumors often include claims that Reynolds has
registered trademarks on possible brand names for marijuana cigarettes and that
the company has purchased tracts of land for growing marijuana. There is no
truth in either claim."

W.
S. SMITH, PRESIDENT

R.
J. REYNOLDS TOBACCO CO.

"The
simple fact is that marijuana is an illegal product. As a responsible company
we have no interest in anything which is illegal here at Phillip Morris and we
have held no discussions nor made any plans concerning the marketing of that
product."

JOSEPH
F. CULLMAN, 3RD, CHAIRMAN

PHILIP
MORRIS, INC.

"Wehave absolutely no intention of breaking any
laws or circumventing them in any way. This obviously applies to the production
and marketing of marijuana."

KEN
MCALLISTER, PRESIDENT

LIGGETT
& MYERS TOBACCO CO.

"We
have on numerous occasions categorically denied any interest in or involvement
with marijuana. We confirm that denial again."

CURTIS
H. JUDGE, PRESIDENT

LORILLARD

"We
are a responsible corporate citizen and, as such, American brands has no
interest whatsoever in any illegal products, including marijuana."

ROBERT
B. WALKER,

CHAIRMAN
OF THE BOARD

AMERICAN
BRANDS, INC.

Well, that's the record set straight,
all right. We say: "famous last words."

Rolling
Stone, 27 January 1977, p. 49

The
Rolling Paper Revue

by
Abe Peck

[Peck
visited the headquarters of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Arlington, Virginia.]

I
looked up the trademarks for Acapulco Gold and Panama Red. And I found them!
There was an Acapulco gold registered to Heublein Inc., of Hartford, Connecticut,
the people behind everything from Kentucky Fried Chicken to premixed drinks.
Another Acapulco Gold registry was held by Charmer Industries, a liquor
distributor based in Smithtown,
New York. And there was the
Acapulco Gold trademark held by RD III Ventures of Great Neck, Long Island.

Panama
Red was registered to Heads and Company of Indianapolis. And when I moved to less
predictable color schemes, I found Jamaica Gold registered to Brick-Hanauer of Waltham, Massachusetts,
and Tennessee Green held by a Nashville
company of the same name.

There
was only one hitch: the Acapulco Golds were, respectively, a chip dip, a
tequila and a suntan oil. The Panama Red, a cologne. The Jamaica Gold, a cigar.
The Tennessee Green, anticlimactically, a matchbook.

There
were no marijuana registrations. And, if we believe C. Morten Wendt, the
director of trademark examining operations, there won't be any until
legalization, when and if.

Wendt's
name reminded me of "C. W. Moss," Bonnie and Clyde's
sidekick. Seated in his office down the hall from the Trademark Search room,
Wendt himself, mid-50s, dapper, his hair neatly trimmed, looked a bit like the
bankers the Barrow gang loved to visit. In a high-pitched voice, Wendt
explained why it is currently impossible to register any trademark for
marijuana.

"You
see, the owner of a trademark acquires property rights through use of that mark
before the public as a means of identifying goods. Now, trademarks for
marijuana arenot registerable. The mark
must be in lawful use in order to be registered. Our government has not
legalized the sale of marijuana. Therefore," he said with the confidence
of a man who lives by the rules, "marijuana is not a product that moves in
commerce. Therefore it cannot have a registerable trademark."

Wendt
asserted that nobody would use the name "Acapulco Gold" for marijuana
even if it became legal. "It's more or less a generic term for it. And
therefore, nobody has the exclusive right to the use of it."

I
felt better. I couldn't register it, but neither could anybody else. But I
recalled that Amorphia had raised money by selling Acapulco Gold rolling
papers. I asked Wendt about it, and he replied that they never actually
registered their common-law trademark.

"We
would not register that," he said, "for the simple reason that we
would say it would be deceptive."

"In
the sense that it refers to a marijuana product?"

"Right,"
he answered.

Assassination
buffs have "smoking pistol" theories to explain their conspiracies. I
asked Wendt about what might be called a "smoking reefer" conspiracy
-- that the cigarette companies have already registered the most commercial
names that could be applied to marijuana.

"Oh
that's all false! That's all false!" Wendt seemed genuinely angry.
"For one thing, our records are open to the public. There is no such thing
as reserving a mark. We have combated this story for the last 15 years, and so
it is absolutely false.

"There's
no protection given to tobacco companies, and they would never -- it would be
very poor business if they were to take one of their known brands, their known
trademarks, in the event that marijuana does become legal, and use it upon a
marijuana cigarette."

"Where
do you think this tobacco company rumor came from?"

"I
don't know -- but honestly, I've been asked it by every one of the news
syndicates and the New York Times and
I don't know how many others."

I
recalled a book called Pot Art, which
quoted Ronald Reagan on the tobacco conspiracy. I gave the "smoking
reefer" theory one last try.

"You
know that Reagan said in 1972 that there are 14 tobacco companies which have
trademarked marijuana."

"What,"
Wendt replied icily, "does Reagan know about trademarks?"

JACK
ANDERSON'S column appeared the day after I typed up my notes on Crystal City. A call to his office revealed that
the people who wrote and researched the column under Anderson's byline had no evidence that
specific tobacco companies were preparing for marijuana cultivation on their
land. "But," said Gary Cohn, the reporter on the story, "they
all own land down there which, according to my sources, is perfectly
convertible for grass." And Cohn made a new and interesting point:

"The
way I understand it is that if the company has a trademark for a smoking
product -- say cigars or cigarettes -- you can transfer it to another smoking
product. That's what I believe and what some legal experts who've researched
the matter have told me." Cohn agreed with Wendt's contention that liquor
companies outside the smoker's article class wouldn't have a head start with
their names if marijuana became legal. Companies like Acapulco and Tijuana Smalls cigars, though,
might.

The
image of a smoking reefer pervaded the room. I called Wendt back.

Though
not an Anderson
fan, Wendt admitted that the tobacco companies could potentially transfer their
trademarks within the smoker's article class. But he made his own interesting
point.

"I
doubt if any one of them would transfer," he said. "Even if marijuana
becomes popular, there's such a thing as the good will of the product. The
product has been established as a tobacco product, and not everyone who smokes
tobacco would want to smoke marijuana. I think it would be very poor business
policy. If it was not labeled that the ingredient had been changed, the
purchaser would have cause of action against the owner of the mark."

So
there I was, blocked from making a fortune, with only the word of the director
of trademark examining operations that the companies would respect the good
will of their products as my consolation. It seemed like there was only one
thing left to do, and I did it. That night, before going to sleep, I left a
flowerpot with a hardy green weed in it on my hotel balcony. The next morning I
rendezvoused with a Washington
trademark attorney. Call him "Deep Toke."

"I
have never done it for any of my clients," Deep Toke said about
registering handy names. "And I'm not sure there's anything unethical
about it. If you're talking about actually putting out a product -- Tijuana Smalls is an
example. That's a very viable product. Now they picked a name for it that may
provide some help if marijuana is ever legalized. But that's a very good
product for that particular company, I'm sure, and their main interest is
probably in cigars."

"My
reply would be that they have registered a number of names that may be useful
in connection with marijuana cigarettes if they were ever legalized. But I
don't think that was their intention in doing it. I really don't."

Needless
to say, it wasn't hard to get the tobacco companies to agree. "Our own
company has no plans for the production of marijuana cigarettes," said Dan
Provost, director of corporate communications for Liggett Group Inc., "and
reliable sources have said that no other company has either." Harold
Edison, trade-relations manager of the General Cigar and Tobacco Company,
makers of Tijuana Smalls cigars, said, "We knew there was a danger with
the name, that Tijuana had a reputation. But," he added, perhaps a bit too
kind to our neighbor to the south, "we found that the name 'Tijuana' had merit aside
from any drug aspect: it's associated with liveliness, youth and fun." The
American Tobacco Company: "We don't discuss marijuana at all." [...]

A
57-year-old Cantonese-speaking woman claims a trio of thieveshypnotized her into giving them $160,000 in
life savings in a bizarrescam that has Chinatown
leaders raising alarms about bewitchingbamboozlers - and experts raising their
eyebrows about the victim'sspellbinding tale. [...]

Friday, May 4, 2012

An
emailed warning from the Carlton County Transportation Department took on a
life of its own late last month, when word about the warning spread like
wildfire … or like an email hoax.

By:
Jana Peterson, Pine Journal

An
emailed warning from the Carlton County Transportation Department took on a
life of its own late last month, when word about the warning spread like
wildfire … or like an email hoax.

In
this case, the warning – cautioning people to beware of plastic drink bottles
that could be filled with an explosive concoction made of three common
household items – was not a hoax, but it was only a warning. [...]